Books

Highly recommended

The Elements of Style

The Elements of Style, commonly referred to simply as "Strunk and White," after the authors. It's widely used and admired as a common-sense guide to good writing. This of course is an recommended text for all my classes. William Strunk, the original author, compiled it from classes he taught at Cornell University early in the 20th Century. Later, E.B. White revised it.Click here to get Strunk's original text, provided free by www.Bartleby.com

However, you'll likely want White's revision of The Elements of Style. That's the book that people use today. Strunk and White advocate for crisp, clear sentence, appropriate word choice and no-nonsense writing without pretense. Strunk says writers need to know the rules in order to break them. So these are the rules.

Oxford English Dictionary

The OED is a favorite dictionary because it gives each of the 600,000 words a thorough examination. The citation will tell you about the word's language of origin and how it's been used through Early English, Middle English and modern English. The OED is really the definitive dictionary of the English language. Think you might want one? Me too. The cost of all 20 volumesthese days is a mere $1,200!